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United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal >> Bennett v Lord Chancellor's Department [1995] UKEAT 66_95_0911 (9 November 1995)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/1995/66_95_0911.html
Cite as: [1995] UKEAT 66_95_0911, [1995] UKEAT 66_95_911
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At the Tribunal
THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE MUMMERY (P)
MR J R CROSBY
MR E HAMMOND OBE
JUDGMENT
PRELIMINARY HEARING
Revised
APPEARANCES
For the Appellant APPELLANT IN PERSON
MR JUSTICE MUMMERY (PRESIDENT): This is the Preliminary Hearing of an appeal by Mr S B Bennett against an Interlocutory decision of the Industrial Tribunal. The Chairman of the Tribunal made an order sent to the parties on 23 November 1994 in proceedings brought by Mr Bennett, against his former employers, the Lord Chancellor's Department. The Chairman made an order, in exercise of his powers under Rule 13(2)(e) of the Rules of Procedure 1993, striking out and dismissing Mr Bennett's Originating Application dated 25 July 1994.
The grounds on which he struck out the application were that it was frivolous and vexatious. He considered it was frivolous and vexatious for the reason that the unfair dismissal, complained of by Mr Bennett, had taken place six years before he had presented his application, notwithstanding that the time limit for such an application was three months.
The application presented on 25 July 1994 claims that Mr Bennett was unfairly dismissed from his post as an Administrative Assistant on 27 May 1988. On the face of it that is outside the time limit for bringing a case. In the details of his complaint, he explained that he had made a complaint in time. That complaint was, according to a decision of the Industrial Tribunal sent to the parties on 17 March 1989, dismissed on withdrawal by Mr Bennett. He attempted to appeal in September 1989 against the refusal of the Industrial Tribunal to restore to the list the hearing of his complaint of unfair dismissal. He stated in the grounds of appeal that he should not be bound by consent, which he did not understand. The Notice of Appeal was accompanied by a covering letter dated 14 September 1989, in which Mr Bennett said he was appealing against the decision refusing to restore his appeal to the list for hearing. There was nothing said in that letter about any kind of pressure being applied to him to withdraw his case.
That appeal was dismissed by Mr Justice Wood on 11 June 1990, after hearing Mr Bennett in person. Mr Justice Wood refused leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal. Mr Bennett brought further proceedings, heard by the Industrial Tribunal at London (South) on 12 February 1993. It appears from the full reasons the Tribunal sent out on 21 June 1993 that Mr Bennett complained to the Tribunal that he had withdrawn the earlier proceedings because he had been subjected to pressure to withdraw. He was aware of the time limits for bringing an application for unfair dismissal. He had been unemployed for five years. His complaint against the Lord Chancellor's Department was that they had been supplying poor references which prevented him from obtaining employment. He said that the present case had taken a long time to present because he had received incorrect information from ACAS. The Tribunal noted he had never actually seen any of the references which he was complaining of, but he assumed they must have been poor. The Tribunal said they had no jurisdiction to deal with a complaint about the provision of references. Statute conferred no jurisdiction to deal with that. On the question of unfair dismissal, the matter was out of their hands, because the case had been withdrawn. His appeal about that had been dismissed. The issue could not be re-opened. There was an appeal about that by Mr Bennett in August 1993. That appeal was dismissed by this Tribunal on 11 October 1993.
Mr Bennett has not been deterred by these events from presenting another application for unfair dismissal on 25 July 1994. In that he repeats his complaints about the circumstances in which the first case was withdrawn. He said in 1989, when he was due to have an Industrial Tribunal hearing, a Mr Webb of ACAS gave him the wrong information about how Industrial Tribunals worked and in doing so, prevented him from having the hearing proceed. He believed that the Treasury Solicitor, who was acting for the Lord Chancellor's Department, offered Mr Webb an incentive to stop him going through with the Industrial Tribunal hearing. They did not want the publicity that the press would give a case against a government department. In addition to that complaint, Mr Bennett has said that he was under pressure to withdraw, because he had received advice from a lawyer from the Free Representation Unit saying that his case would fail.
The Chairman of the Industrial Tribunal made the order, under approval, striking the case out on the basis that it was long out of time. Mr Bennett appeals against that by a Notice of Appeal served on 16 January 1995. The ground of appeal is that the Chairman made a wrong decision in stating that Mr Bennett had failed to respond to three letters in September, October and November 1994. It is true that in his decision the Chairman says that Mr Bennett failed to respond to three Tribunal letters sent over that period, inviting him to show cause why a striking out order should not be made.
We have considered these papers. We have heard a submission from Mr Bennett personally. He said he has come here claiming justice. He wants justice to be seen to be done. He has repeated his allegations that his original case was withdrawn under pressure from ACAS and legal advice at FRU. He complains that the Lord Chancellor's Department still refuses to give him a reference for a job. He has repeated that he did in fact reply to the letters referred to by the Chairman in the Order. We have considered the arguments. We have reached the conclusion that, on this Preliminary Hearing, Mr Bennett has failed to show that there is an arguable point of law on the appeal. The position seems clear enough to us on the history of this case. He brought a case in time. He withdrew it on advice. That is the end of the matter. What he is seeking to do in later cases is either to resurrect a case, which came to an end when he withdrew it, or to bring a new case, such as the case on references, which the Industrial Tribunal has no jurisdiction to entertain. This appeal is doomed to fail. There is no point in letting it go on. It will therefore be dismissed now.